The packaging of radioactive waste can be carried out by compacting the product and storing the same in a standardized storage vessel composed in part of steel sheet, the canister being generally stored in subterranean facilities.
A standardized canister for this purpose may have a volumetric capacity of 200 to 400 liters and thus requires a sheet steel of corresponding thickness and strength.
The radioactive wastes which can be packaged in such canisters generally are radioactive waste products obtained from the various solids which are generated in the operation of nuclear power plants. Such materials can include textiles, e.g. contaminated garments, paper and the like.
In general, such materials are discarded in a nuclear power plant in waste collection vessels from which they are dumped into the canisters into which they are to be stored and the canisters may be stacked so that, in effect, a package can comprise a number of such containers in a tablet shape or compact configuration, more or less compressed radioactive wastes and even systems in which the containers are themselves compacted and caused to corrugate or deform in a more or less regular pattern. Indeed, it is known to dump the radioactive material into a steel canister and compress the resulting package to decrease the volume thereof while wrinkling or creasing or folding the walls thereof.